Liquid Cocaine Shipment Busted in Bangladesh

Police and customs authorities in Bangladesh say a Bangladeshi-born British citizen conspired with his cousin to smuggle 407 pounds of liquid cocaine from Uruguay in a shipment of blue plastic barrels marked as Bolivian sunflower oil.

The shipment of 107 barrels arrived on May 8 to the southeastern Bangladeshi port city of Chittagong and, after customs authorities received a tip from British intelligence, they seized it. Subsequent tests revealed one of the barrels to contain cocaine. Authorities now estimate that around one third of the barrels contain cocaine, which would give the shipment a street value of around $39 million.

Police have accused Golam Mostafa Sohel of working with his British-Bangladeshi cousin, Bakul Miah, of trying to smuggle the barrels through Bangladesh to a third, yet-to-be-named country. The chairman of the shipping company and several of his employees have also been taken into custody, according to Bangladeshi news organizations.

Related: French Customs Seize and Destroy Record 2.5 Tons of Cocaine In Caribbean

"We have initiated our investigation since this morning and we hope to find out all the answers soon," Hossain Ahmed, who oversees the Customs Intelligence and Investigation (CII) department in Chittagong, told VICE News.

Sources within the CII office in Dhaka told VICE News that they will contact the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to help test the other 106 containers in the consignment, as Bangladesh does not have the equipment or expertise to separate the drugs from the oil.

Chittagong police sources told VICE News that the consignment came into Chittagong port via Singapore from Uruguay on May 8.

But the consignment could not be released in the next three weeks because no valid Letter of Credit was opened for importing the oil from Bolivia, according to Chittagong police.

Based on the information from British intelligence, the Special Branch of Bangladesh police initiated an investigation, searching for those responsible for importing the sunflower oil. But nothing was found.

Later, the British intelligence agency informed the Bangladesh police that a Chittagong-based company named Khan Jahan Ali Ltd imported the shipment. On June 7, the shipment was found and seal off in the container depot of the port.

The next step was to test the contents of the barrels.

The first test failed to detect any drugs in the containers. Tests carried out by Narcotics Department of Bangladesh also failed to detect the cocaine.

Finally samples were sent for further testing to Bangladesh's Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (BCSIR) and Drug Testing Laboratory in Dhaka. These samples tested positive for cocaine in one of the barrels, which contained 185 kilograms of oil, on June 27.

On the same day, Chittagong port police filed a case accusing Nur Mohammad, chairman of Khan Jahan Ali Ltd, Golam Mostafa Sohel, and several others under the narcotics act.

Nur Mohammad has denied any involvement in importing the cocaine-laden oil.

Related: A Ton of Cocaine Seen Floating at Sea Collected Off Coast of Belgium

Police sources say that Golam Mostafa Sohel used the name of Khan Jahan Ali as the consignee on the shipment that was sent to him by the Bangladeshi-born Bakul Miah, a relative in the United Kingdom with British citizenship. As the shipment could not be released to Sohel in May due to paperwork problems, Miah had even tried to have the cocaine shipped back to Uruguay, marked as the port of origin in the cargo documents, or to India.

Investigators have found that Miah, who was born in Moulvibazar, Bangladesh, has been living in the UK for three decades. He is suspected of working for a Scotland-based member of an international drug cartel.

Top CII officials say the cocaine was most likely going to some European country. They said the cocaine was not likely intended for Bangladesh since the country does not have the equipment or skills necessary to separate liquid cocaine from oil. Also, cocaine is an extremely expensive drug for Bangladesh, where Yaba and heroin are more popular.).

Police officials say traffickers commonly ship drugs in liquid form from South America through Asian ports in India, Thailand, and Myanmar on their way to their final destinations in North America and Western Europe, in an effort to mask the true origin of the shipments.

"We hope to learn more about the destination of the drugs and the people involved as the investigation continues," said Chittagong police commissioner Abdul Jalil.

Besides smuggling through sunflower oil, liquid cocaine is also smuggled by ingestion of latex capsules by drug 'mules,' and spraying the drug onto articles of clothing.

Watch the VICE News documentary, "Cocaine and Crude."